


After

by 55anon (Anon)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7323364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anon/pseuds/55anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After-- Levi wipes the blood from his blades and walks straight, without limping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers, possible OOC? This makes sense in my headspace, but might not align with canon.

After-- Levi wipes the blood from his blades and walks straight, without limping.

 

They don't build a bonfire.  They haven't since the walls fell.

 

He no longer salutes anyone, anything.

 

Levi is not Erwin.  He doesn't have the politicking mind, the stratagems and machinations.  He doesn't carry visions, inherited from books in forgotten tongues.  He kills Titans.  It's what he does best.

 

Their world has always been drenched in red, rust, iron, sinew, bone-- congealed blood on pavement stones.  This seems to fade.

 

He still keeps everything clean.  Shaves, bleaches his shirts and starches his cravat, washes his hair and scrubs under his fingernails.  Sleeps dreamlessly-- nightmares having long receded in the years of combat.  Eats his rations, watching as the portions grow smaller.  Old habits from the Underground reemerge.

 

What's left of the Survey Corps, held together by some sort of insanity Levi doesn't bother to name, expect him to lead.  So he leads.  He has no clue what the fuck he is leading them towards, the timbre of words like 'humanity' and 'freedom' having disappeared into stone and earth.

 

Some soldiers speak of ghosts.  Of hearing voices.  Fighting for the memory of.

 

Levi would give anything to produce the shadow of a hallucination, but he is left with nothing.  No hauntings, no hands or textures and he can't remember the colour of the sky.  The world recedes.

 

He has no obligation to fight.

 

One night, after sex, sated and a mouth sucking kisses into his back--

 

_If anything happens to me--_

_what_

 

_If anything happens to me, I don't expect you to keep fighting._

 

_what the fuck shut up are you seriously this dumb you blond fuck_

_I'm serious, Levi._

_you're the piece of shit who started calling me humanity's strongest you expect me to die pining for you or something_

_I expect you to find your freedom.  Your oaths were to me.  When I'm gone, you'll no longer be bound by them._

_where the fuck do you expect me to go_

_Far away._

_stop smiling I will break your legs get off_

 

_Promise me._

_fuck no I'll do what I want_

_Thank you._

He hadn't counted on the possibility that Levi wouldn't know what he wanted, without.

 

They both knew Levi was the stronger, the one who would find a way to survive in victory or defeat.  Erwin might have killer instincts in maneuvering people and manipulating intelligence, but Levi had been playing the survival game longer, for higher stakes.

 

After-- killing remains natural.  He stays.  People need him, but he has never given a fuck about what people need.  What is the point of leaving if no one is free.

 

_Do you regret?_

_what the fuck is wrong with you_

_I want to know.  Be honest._

_regret doesn't matter.  it doesn't change anything, so there's no point_

_Levi._

_I'm not going to say what you want to hear dumbass get your gear off_

(Levi surged up and kissed him, kissed him to make him understand the things he couldn't say with words because there were no words to describe the preceding years culminating to the present hell they found themselves facing, hands lacing together, straps unraveling.  Erwin breathed-- )

_I love you_

_yeah so get down here and fuck me_

After there are no tears.  He gave those to his squad.  Erwin held him.  Levi does not hold himself.  So there are no tears.

 

There's no hope or sense or reason either.  There never was, and Erwin had known too this even as he'd wrapped his arms around Levi and talked about the sea.

 

He'd mourned Erwin already, when the surgeons hacked off what remained of the arm and looked grim, citing blood loss, infection, possible sepsis.  Titan mouths a cesspool of disease.

 

He'd mourned, and when Erwin recovered in time to be hanged--

 

He walks without a limp.  He does not salute.

 

Red, rust, amber, ochre fade to the same shade of crushed pavement.

 

_Do you regret?_

As he walks without limping, he bitterly regrets-- what he could never change--

 

(colour returns, briefly, to his world)

 

If Levi could have altered the course of their lives he would have burned all the books in all the damn libraries, burned them all in bonfires in place of--

 

_fuck no I'll do what I want_

_(I love you)_

 

in place of--

 

(salute: offer your heart)

 

in place of.

 

 


End file.
